Fighting to make Iran and Al Qaeda stronger

Following nicely on the theme of my post about Digby being angry about the BushCo - al Qaeda symbiosis, Glenn Greenwald hits the same nail squarely on the head with this post entitled Fighting to make Iran and Al Qaeda stronger. Commenting on Cheney's interview by Tim Russert on Meet the Press, Glenn points out how the facts are "underscoring the core incoherence and real danger to the U.S. posed by the invasion of Iraq".

Just last week -- last week -- the administration's newly released National Strategy for Combating Terrorism claimed that "Iran remains the most active state sponsor of international terrorism." But the government in Iraq which we are struggling and fighting to stabilize and strengthen is already one that has -- to use the Vice President's own words -- "close ties" to Iran, our arch enemy. And those ties with Iran are obviously only going to strengthen if and when we ever reduce our presence there, let alone if we ever leave ("'Who has more influence with Iraq? Iran or the U.S.?' VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I think the U.S. does today'").

That means that we are essentially fighting for Iran. And the longer we stay and the more we fight and drain all of our resources in order to stabilize the Iraqi Government, the more we do to promote the interests of the country which the administration says is the greatest threat to American interests.

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It may not be entirely accurate to say that Iran is the sole beneficiary of our invasion of Iraq, since there may be another one. As Thomas Ricks reports today in the Washington Post:

The chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq recently filed an unusual secret report concluding that the prospects for securing that country's western Anbar province are dim and that there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation there, said several military officers and intelligence officials familiar with its contents. . . .

One Army officer summarized it as arguing that in Anbar province, "We haven't been defeated militarily but we have been defeated politically -- and that's where wars are won and lost." . . .

Devlin reports that there are no functioning Iraqi government institutions in Anbar, leaving a vacuum that has been filled by the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq, which has become the province's most significant political force, said the Army officer, who has read the report.

Al Qaeda thrives where there is anarchy and chaos, and by transforming Iraq into a cauldron of chaos -- which our own military says, at least with respect to some parts of that country, "there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation there" -- we have transformed Iraq from a place where Al Qaeda could not operate into one where they are the most dominant force.